Armstrong faces legal marathon

In keeping with his declaration that he wishes to keep out of the public eye for the near future, Lance Armstrong yesterday denied recent press rumours that he would run for the governorship of Texas in next year's elections.

Armstrong yesterday began his retirement by flying to the south of France for a beach holiday with his girlfriend, the rock star Sheryl Crow - whose next album is inspired by her love affair with the seven-times Tour de France winner - and his children Luke, Grace and Isabelle and close friends. His plan, he said before the Tour ended, was to have a preview of his life "for the next 50 years - no stress".

That may not be quite so easy to achieve in the medium term, if the list of impending legal cases involving him is anything to go by. As in so much that he has brought to his sport, litigation on this scale is a first for professional cycling, where lawyers were hardly involved until the 1980s and where they have tended to limit their activities to the occasional contractual dispute.

All the legal disputes have a common theme: drugs allegations involving either Armstrong or his former trainer Michele Ferrari, with whom the Texan officially cut all ties after Ferrari's conviction in October on drugs charges.

A recent biography of Armstrong estimated that he is employing 11 lawyers on eight cases in three countries: the US, Britain and France. Several of the cases centre on allegations made in the 2004 biography LA Confidentiel: Les Secrets de Lance Armstrong, which uses what is apparently circumstantial evidence to support its claim that he may have used performance- enhancing drugs.

Armstrong has brought libel suits against the authors, the Sunday Times journalist David Walsh and the former L'Equipe sportswriter Pierre Ballester, and against the Sunday Times, as well as against two of the witnesses quoted in the book.

Armstrong is also fighting a Dallas company, SCA Promotions, over his $5m (£2.86m) performance bonus for 2004. The company withheld the bonus, saying that it wished to look into the allegations in LA Confidentiel further and asking to examine Armstrong's medical records. The case is in arbitration and is expected to stay there until at least the end of the year.

In a further case to be heard in the US, Armstrong faces a case brought by his former personal assistant Mike Anderson, who claims he was sacked by the Texan in February 2004 after spotting a box containing steroids in Armstrong's bathroom. Armstrong denies the claim and has issued a counter-suit.

Finally, Filippo Simeoni's case for "public defamation" against Armstrong will be heard in Paris in March. The Italian cyclist was a key witness in Ferrari's trial and sued Armstrong after the American claimed in an interview with a French newspaper that Simeoni was "an absolute liar".

Whatever the outcome, Armstrong has confirmed that he will return to the Tour next year in a consultant's role with the Discovery Channel team. "I'll be on the Tour a little, probably bothering [the team manager] Johan [Bruyneel], begging for a place in the car." He already part-owns the management company that runs the team.

His immediate task, he accepts, will be to find a new US star to front the team. "The Tour is the only time that cycling crosses over to the newspapers and networks. For the American public to stay interested in cycling and the Tour they have to have an American guy, an American face."

As well as his close friend George Hincapie, Armstrong has named another, younger rider with the team, Tom Danielson, as a possible future leader.

Speculation that Armstrong will eventually find his way into politics was heightened when the White House confirmed yesterday that he had taken a telephone call from George W Bush, a fellow Texan, shortly after finishing his final Tour in Paris.

President Bush and last year's Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry are both keen cyclists. Kerry was at the Tour over the weekend and said that Armstrong would be a force to be reckoned with if he went into politics, "but I hope he goes in for the right side".

Armstrong has never openly declared his allegiance; he is on President Bush's cancer commission but apparently opposed the Iraq war, and his girlfriend's left-wing credentials are well established.

Armstrong denied at the start of the Tour that he had any immediate ambitions for a political career, citing his dislike of press conferences. "I don't like this setting," he said. "Why be president and have this setting every day? But politics and the good of my country interest me."

Brief encounters: a champion's case load

Libel

To be heard November 2005. Libel action against the Sunday Times and David Walsh over an article about LA Confidentiel, Les Secrets de Lance Armstrong, an unauthorised biography written by Walsh and Pierre Ballester.

Unfair dismissal

December 2005. Claim by former personal assistant Mike Anderson for unfair dismissal; counter-claim by Armstrong.

Defamation

March 2006. Public defamation suit by Italian cyclist Filippo Simeoni to be heard in Paris.

Libel

Summer 2006. Libel action in Paris against Walsh and Ballester, and against Emma O'Reilly and Stephen Swart, witnesses quoted in the book; libel action against La Martinière, publisher of LA Confidentiel, and against L'Express, which published extracts from the book.